What happens when philosophy students turn their attention to emotion, technology, and mindfulness? In this episode of The Living Conversation, hosts Adam Dietz and Anthony Wright sit down with Colette, Andrew, and Haley from the Sonoma State University Philosophy Club to explore how social media shapes emotion, how grounding and Qigong restore balance, and how ancient wisdom, Confucian, Daoist, and Zen, meets modern anxiety.

Together they ask: How do we stay present in a distracted world? How can we cultivate the mind as a living practice?

philosophy, mindfulness, emotion, grounding, Tai Chi, Qigong, Confucianism, Zen, Sonoma State Philosophy Club, Adam Dietz, Anthony Wright, The Way Between, student conversation, presence, social media and mental health, living philosophy

Foreign.

I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your host today on the Living Conversation. And today we have guests from the Sonoma State University Philosophy Club with President Colette and the members Haley and Andrew.

And we may have some other members that joining us later. But welcome you guys.

It's wonderful to that you're here and I'm here with my co host, yeah, Adam ds Welcome Adam DE and so one of the things that we have been interested in getting to know more about are, is, you know, because Adam and I talk about Chinese philosophy and what seems to be going on in the world right now. But what, what's on your mind, you guys?

Are there some questions you have about what's going on in the world today or things about, about Western philosophy or Eastern philosophy? Adam knows a bit more about Western philosophy than I do, but is there anything that's, that's on your mind?

Well, our last meeting was just the other day on Friday and we discussed the philosophy of emotion and how our emotions affect the world and our lived experiences and we went into a lot of different details with it, but there's a lot of new emotions rising from the increased technology, TikTok, Instagram, all that different, different ways that people are affected by that. So yeah, that's kind of what we were talking about.

Well, and how are you? How do you.

Because that's one of the things that I really noticed was affect, emotional affect of people after Covid and it really seemed to kind of be down, you know, and more people are, are getting feeling alone and feeling emotionally less than positive from social media use. Would you say that's true?

Oh definitely. Yeah.

After Covid everyone was pretty separated and social media just continued to separate people from one creating almost this self centered point of view for people as you become detached then like the whole self love movement we talked about, you know, taking care of yourself is very important but like it can lead to narcissistic behavior where you really think you are the most important when that's not always true. See.

Well, but also do you guys find it is kind of assisting you to kind of get out of your phones when you come together in the club?

You guys can also talk.

No.

Yeah.

And this is Haley, but go ahead Haley.

Oh I know like when we join for club personally like I'm usually off my phone for I'd say a good percentage of it. I do.

I mean we all have the habit of kind of checking your phone also just you know, having to, you know, if you're letting people know where you are, et cetera. But I've noticed in our last few meetings, I. I don't find myself on my phone.

I find myself engaged because we're actually having deep conversations as opposed to maybe your, you know, run of the mill conversations you might have with your friends, where you're just kind of checking in on each other, which is like, really casual. But since we're engaging on this, like, deeper level conversation, it's more engaging, so I'm not gonna want it.

Like, I tend to check my phone when I'm bored, and I don't get as bored when I'm actually in deeper conversations that are making you think. So I think the Philosophy club is definitely a great way to kind of have that, like, technological break.

And also kind of speaking to what Colette was saying, I think there is such this desire need to post on social media because you see everyone doing it so.

Right.

You should. That every moment becomes a. How is this gonna look on social media really? Or how could it be? How could it look?

How could I frame this rather than enjoying it? And I mean, I try to stay away from that. I try to. I'm not as active as on social media as I think a lot of my counterparts.

Right.

But there still can be a perception of, like, you know, am I enjoying this? Am I living in the moment, or am I taking pictures and posting and is that taking me out of the moment?

Right, right.

Yeah. Personally. So part of it's a little bit of an age gap thing. Some of it's a personality.

So I just turned 25, so, like, I still kind of remember a time before the Internet being as ubiquitous as it is. I was 2,000, so. So I've never.

I've never really been on social media in the sense that, like, I use YouTube, but, like, I don't use it to follow personalities. I've never followed the whole celebrity sphere. I've only made a snapshot and a tik tok because some people wanted to send me some things.

And, like, I checked it like a couple of times ever, so I'm not. I haven't been that whole thing of. Of like, I need to, like, share stuff, I need to send stuff.

As far as, like, our meetings go, like, I. I've only been on my phone to, like, if somebody directly messaged me. And I actually don't think that happened during meetings, but also just like, show stuff. Like when we were talking about emotions.

Like, I showed you the pictures of. I play this game, Tiny Glade, which you just build cute little Villages. And it's like a perfect thing to just like calm my brain down before bed.

Like. Like that. That's. That's about it. That I've used my phone for.

Yeah, well. And your thoughts, Adam?

It's very interesting. I'm really glad you guys are doing that work.

The first thing that comes to mind when you were speaking about emotion, I don't know if you've come across this or not. I didn't have the pleasure to have you in my classes.

But one thing that we focused on there was that the whole point of philosophy, and especially Eastern philosophy, is that you cultivate yourself and you understand your mind and. And you understand yourself at its highest level.

So when you understand your mind and yourself at its highest level, you give yourself lots of space to be able to process emotions and see them at their highest level. So when you understand your true self, then you actually, we talk about often living conversation.

You have a whole universe of time and space in your own mind. So these complex emotions can come across and you can see them without feeling very attached to them. You can.

If you see the emotion of sadness come by, you can feel very comfortable, say, okay, should I be sad? Is this appropriate? And you go, excuse me. You could either watch it pass by and not. Not worry about it or fit state, okay, I should really feel sad.

I'll lean into this, I'll cry, I'll mourn. And then. And then you feel like you really lived it, right? But when you're. When you're seeing an emotion pass by and you let it take over you, right?

And you don't have any space or time or mental awareness or mindfulness as the emotion is coming, then you can get dragged into all sorts of things you didn't even choose to get dragged into.

So talking about Daoist perspective, Zen, Buddhist perspective, then you cultivate your mind, you understand your deepest self to allow things like emotion to pass by. So that was very interesting to me. And. And I have more thoughts, but I don't want to bogart the whole conversation.

Do you guys touch on anything like that when you're discussing?

We did not really talk about that type of thing this time, but definitely last year when we had a similar conversation, I brought up the whole theory of, like, you should be attuned with your own emotions before engaging in relationships with other people. But be that friendships, romantic relationships, anything, pretty much, because it's not really going to be very successful.

You might run it into the ground if you're not very sound yourself. Once you can Figure out how to best cultivate and manage your own emotions.

Then you'll be able to work well with other people, and then you won't rely on them for as many things. Yeah, just that whole kind of deal.

That's very good.

Yeah. Have you found.

That reminds me when you. So in Confucian philosophy, when you cultivate this. This mind, it's actually your humanity, but your humanity is your highest self.

Your humanity from Confucian perspective is from heaven. Has all time and space, the whole entire cosmos come into yourself as a human being is your humanity.

So when you have this humanity, you can understand yourself. Then you can be loyal to your highest self.

You understand your deepest self, you understand your original self, your heavenly self from all time and space. Then you can deeply empathize with other people. So when you're describing, it feels like, okay, I should really focus on myself, become my best self.

Then I could be my best self for other people. I could understand their best self too.

And does that makes. That makes space for other people's best self by doing that?

And I guess one of the things that I had learned in, with Zen Buddhism, in sitting Zazen, is in the meditative state just to kind of watch stuff go by. Oh, there's an emotion. Oh, And I often wondered, you know, sometimes, oh, wait, and a thought would come into my head or an emotion.

And I said, well, whose emotions are those? Are they mine? And it's. It's part of the idea of cultivating a bit more choice, I guess I would say. Does that make sense?

I may have seen it.

Go ahead and. Yeah, so that if we can choose, then then we're not grabbed by them.

And I think that's one of the things that's happening pretty prevalently in our social fabric right now about this idea about. I. I know I. Colette, you may remember this. This example that I offered in my classes with you guys where I would hand. Hand somebody a cup, right?

Or hand somebody something. And I. And reach out to grab it. And I said, well, wait, did. Do you know what's in there? How do you don't know what's in there?

Because people were, you know, on your phone, you're getting handed stuff all the time, and people naturally reach to take something that's being handed to them and you don't know what's in there. There might be some hooks in there. And part of it is that I've been seeing is a lot of people are being offered fear. Don't you want to be afraid?

So you can belong with us.

And I'm thinking to myself, geez, I think I'm gonna maybe take a pass on that, because with some of these limbic emotions like fear and, and, and loneliness, and they've shut down the cognitive faculty. So you can't think if you're afraid. You know, let's fight or flight. Right.

But if I go, oh, I think I'm just gonna let that one go by, what an interesting thing that that was being offered. And why would they want me to be afraid? And are they feeling sort of insecure if they're trying to.

To be arrogant or try to be in control or, you know, something like that? Yes.

Colette, I think the most useful thing that you taught me when I was in your class was the, the grounding story with the tree. You know, you root yourself to the ground and then put it below, like, oh, that was just wonderful. I use that all the time.

Oh, I'm so delighted. I've been teaching other people.

Oh, yeah.

Anthony, can you, can you introduce our listener to that concept?

Yeah, it's one of the first things that I get people involved with is there's two different kinds of grounding. Because a lot of times when we're not grounded, we are subject to that illusion that we're this independent body.

And then it just, you know, an emotional come through, or you go into a room that's really highly charged and, you know, whoa, I can't handle it, you know. But what I'm going to do is I'll go into those exercises in just a moment because we're coming up on a break here.

I'm Anthony Wright and I am your co host today with Adam Dietz.

And we're here on the Living Conversation and with the president of the Sonoma State University Philosophy Club and members Haley and Andrew and Colette. How can people contact the Philosophy Club if they're interested in being in touch with you guys?

The easiest way is through Instagram. So it's just at SSU Philosophy Club. Please check us out.

Cool.

And Adam, I follow you guys, by the way.

That's awesome.

So you can actually find me on Instagram at the way between. But the mostly and try to funnel all my work through Substack the way between. Substack.com. all my links are on there.

And you can reach out to me at Deeds, Adam, Gmail as well.

And that's D E I T Z.

D I E T Z D I.

E T. I keep making that mistake. I'm sorry, man. And then I'm my website is theona T-H-E-O-N-A-U-T.com so we're going to take a short break and be right back. So stay tuned.

Foreign I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your host today on the Living Conversation with my co host, Adam Dietz.

Welcome.

We are joined today by the Sonoma State University Philosophy Club with Colette, who is the president and members Haley and Andrew. And before the break, I was talking about and Colette had mentioned before the break about the grounding exercise.

And it's one of the things that I offer to all of my students about when you're and this really assists, particularly when you're in a situation where there's a power differential or somebody that's more powerful than you, either older or they, they are have more social power or more academic power or legal power to get grounded. And then you're not kind of being swept around by emotions that people would try to offer you.

So one of the things is I have people sit quietly and then imagine this is the first one to grow roots out of the soles of your feet down into the ground, like maybe 10ft.

And then you're for you're up on a second floor just to have that imaginary root that comes out of the soles of your feet that goes down into the earth about 10ft and then just to notice how quiet it is there down, up in, in the, in the earth. And then it's, you can be rooted into the earth. So, and let me how have you found that useful? Colette.

Well, I am a person with lots of anxiety.

And.

So even when the outside world isn't loud, it's sometimes still loud in here in my head. And so I'll use the grounding method to make it a little quieter so I can think clearer about what I'm doing.

Oh, that's great. And it's always and I, I've, I think I've asked you of this before. Are you, are you anxious about stuff that happened yesterday?

I, I'm usually anxious about like all the things. So probably, yeah.

Anxiety is really a function of stuff that happened in the past. So for example, you've taken a test already last semester.

Sure.

Yeah.

Are you anxious about that?

No.

To the past. Right.

Yeah.

So the other grounding exercise that I do is what I'm calling Gaian grounding.

And it is actually, I don't know if we want to take the time to do it on the air here, but it's locating that that part of you that is your awareness. And sometimes people. Aware. People's awareness is between their eyes, and sometimes people's awareness is in their chest at the level of the heart.

But it's always to be able to move that awareness around in the body.

And what we do, and I won't have you do it now, but what we do is to take that awareness and make it kind of like a ball, like the size of a softball or whatever, and then connect that awareness with the heart with a little imaginary silver thread. And then imagine that you can move your awareness around, like, to the top of your head or to your belly or to your feet or even outside the body.

But it's always connected to the heart with a little silver thread. So you can always find your way back.

And what we do is then we'll take that awareness that is connected to this, the silver, with a silver thread to the heart, and let it go down through the soles of the feet, down into the ground, and continue to go deeply into the ground for like, 100 miles, a thousand miles, 2,000 miles, right to the center of the earth. And once people get to that, I ask people to notice a greenish light, and they go right for the center of that.

And in terms of archetypal psychology, this is known as Gaia, who is the feminine Greek goddess. It gives life to everything on Earth. And to connect that silver thread into Gaia and to allow that thread to remain attached so that ever after.

And it's been so useful because when I come into a situation that is uncertain, I'll do a guy in grounding. I actually do it every morning. And, like, Adam does Tai chi. And I'd be interested in hearing your experience about grounding with Tai Chi, Adam.

But it really assists because I'm no longer this, you know, independent body that can be bowled over by a. A huge blast of emotion or something. Is that making sense, you guys? Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

It's coming through okay. Yeah. So in many senses, I understand what you mean. I mean, I'm. I have a very physicalist, materialist sort of worldview.

So, like, most people's definition of spirituality or whatever, I don't believe in and stuff. However, that whole feeling, at least down to moving it around within the body, I do that for myself. Like, that is a real thing.

And of course, like, I'm not, like, here to attack anything on, like, oh, it's not super. Because, like, as human beings, like, we're animals, you know, we evolved.

So, like, we have certain things that have semantic meaning, that have emotional meaning that were useful. And, like, a lot of these things that tend to, like, get pushed as, like, stuff that is, like, weird infringe.

Actually, they're genuine, like, emotional things, and they're actually useful tools. And so, like, that specifically is a very useful tool that I. I actually. I completely agree.

Doesn't get talked enough about how you can, like, trust certain parts of your bodies, have. Has different instincts and stuff. Like, I'll trust my stomach or my heart or something. And, like, I can.

I know exactly what you mean about being able to, like, move something. And that's a very important skill, I would say that.

That a lot of people should have is, like, being able to understand which parts of your body you should designate to, like, which emotions.

And you have choice.

Exactly.

Start feeling a certain way, you go, what do I really. Is that really my emotion? So, Adam, you practice Tai Chi every day?

I do practice Tai Chi every day. Talk a bit about.

How that's useful.

Yeah, well, as far as, on one hand, you have the experience of meditation.

And.

Meditation can help you settle your mind, can help you settle your mind, help you have more space from emotions, help everything be a little more clear. Now, Tai Chi allows you to do that in a very embodied way. You still do one breath in, one breath out, but you are moving. You're moving your body.

You're using your muscles. You're also practicing what is in Taoist philosophy, the movement of the way, the movement of dao. So the movement of the principle of the universe.

The. The.

The universe has scientific laws. Matter is neither created nor destroyed, just changes shape. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

So every action has equal and opposite reaction. Is actually describing the movement of the way, the movement of the dao. Because the movement of the way, the movement of doubt is reverse and return.

So when you practice Tai Chi, you practice one breath in, one breath out. This syncs with the universe. The universe has morning comes up to noon, back down to night. Winter comes up to summer, back down to winter.

Tides go in, tides go out, waves come in, waves come out. Breath goes in, breath goes out.

So you practice Tai Chi, you go a little bit forward this way, then you come back this way, reverse, and return is a movement of the way.

So you seeing your body to this phenomenon that's in the universe, and you and the goal of human being is to experience this and then to integrate it. That's integrated. So Tai Chi every morning allows me to feel more free before I practice Tai Chi. I thought my philosophy, my life was very ethics.

I needed to do everything just right. If I did everything just right, I feel very good.

Perfect.

Yeah, I feel very good. If I made a mistake, maybe I wouldn't feel so good.

Mentions in Confucian philosophy calls this righteousness chi, that you do the good things, you feel better, you have good cheat. But now Tai Chi allowed me to sync with this type of principle every morning. So now I feel more free with myself. Okay, I made a little mistake here.

Okay.

I have some bad habits here. Okay. It's okay. I'll be gentle with myself. I have some old karma I'm working through.

Okay.

And. But now I'm okay. I still have the principle in it. The principle is still in it.

What's so interesting you're talking about that I do something very similar called qigong.

Yeah.

And honestly, it totally changed my life. I have a lot of anxiety, but, like, why I started was I was really getting over a difficult time I had in high school with a bully, actually.

And so, like, I just could not get the.

The words that they had said to.

Me out of my head. And when I started to practice qigong, it was like.

Like suddenly I could control the thoughts in my head and, like, my hands weren't shaking and I. I felt very whole. It was very nice.

So very good. Yeah, I practiced qigong before Tai chi, but go ahead.

Healing.

Oh, yeah. Just to piggyback off of what both of you guys are saying, while I haven't practiced either of those, I meditation.

Because I do also, like, collect a lot of anxiety, a lot of rumination, stuff like that. And always in my meditation practice, it's always about noting.

And we talk noting emotions, and you're never trying to suppress them as much as we ideally think, oh, these are bad thoughts, these are bad, you know, emotions. We want to get rid of them or expel them. Just the noting and the like, we talked about, like, what is making me feel that way?

Is it something outside of me that is happening and, you know, causing chaos, or is it something internal and being able to relate that to how it's making my body, how it shows up in my body, because I can definitely tell, like, I get really tense or. Oh, yeah. And you can definitely feel after long bouts of stress or anxiety that you just feel that tension.

Like, you might get used to it because it's just happening for a while and but once you maybe take a second to meditate or to do I practice more yoga. But I that physical like once I'm actually getting like in touch with my physical body being like, oh, I didn't let myself just breathe.

I'm not letting myself just exist as a person because I'm so wound up. And realizing that those thoughts and those physical sensations are connected has really helped me.

I know I probably don't do as much of the meditation or as much as the yoga that would be beneficial to me. But I also know because I think for a while I was like, oh, meditation, that's hard. That's not going to work for me.

You try for two minutes and you know it doesn't work and you're like, ah, forget it.

But I think the real like struggle is actually forcing yourself to go through with it and make it a daily practice this and realize how connected the, you know, our brain and our thoughts are to our physical body.

Yeah.

Well, we're kind of experience with, with that. We have another break coming.

Yep, we got, we've got a short break coming up here. I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz. Adam Dietz. And how can people contact you, Adam?

You can look me up on Substack at the way between@substack.com and you could contact me directly. Deets Adam Gmail. D I E T Z Adam Gmail. Love to hear from you.

Our guest today are members of the Snow Snakes. Excuse me, Sonoma State University Philosophy Club. And the president is Colette. And how can people contact you guys?

Hi.

Yeah, so just reach out to the Instagram for the Philosophy Club. Just SSU Philosophy Club. We'd love to hear from you.

Great. All right, we're going to take a short break and be right back, so stay tuned.